hot in a hurry

Hello summer!  I mean, when it gets hot here, it's gets hot ..... and in a hurry too :)  All kinds of things to learn about this new city we call home. 

We're not the only ones enjoying these warm temps, our garden is growing like crazy.  Every morning we are all excited to see what popped up during the night while we slept.  Our 小白菜 ( little cabbage) is looking more and more like supper-potential.  The hundreds of buds on our vines are opening faster than we can count.  Our tomato plants get taller every day.  And we've got weeds .... everywhere.  I'm hoping to get out there and dig some tomorrow.

Luckily, I'll have my professional dirt-digger alongside, and he loves to use his little trowel :)  Today I went out to take a few pictures of the flowers and turned around just in time to see Isaac doing a little early harvesting of the 小白菜 .  Oops.   

He's so fun and loves getting in our garden.  When he isn't digging in the dirt he is often busy looking for ants.

Good news is..... ants aren't too hard to find.

I did get a few pictures of the flowers too.  I'm not really sure what these are called, but they are all over the place these days - and just beautiful.  Our first bud opened Easter Sunday morning and now they are popping open all the time. 

We have these vines growing on all three sides of our courtyard and hope that by next summer they wind through and cover almost all the fencing. 

We've had a good friend from our old city visiting the last two days and it's been so fun to see Zhang Man.  Today as she said goodbye Julianna asked me when I met her and I started thinking.... it was Christmas 2004!  One thing I love about Zhang Man is that she is soooo great with kids. 

It's a holiday weekend here which means Matt works and I'll do my best to stay home and avoid crowds and traffic!  Fun times and soooooooo glad for warm weather.